Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: Staff/Personnel

FRANCES PALMER (CONQUIST)

Frances Palmer (Conquist) came to Pine Mountain’s Line Fork Settlement only for a short six months in 1920. She was one of the first workers to come to the satellite extension at Line Fork Medical Settlement and her narrative is particularly important as it is a very candid response to the medical needs of the community by the first nurse to work at the Settlement.

In 1918, shortly before her stay at Pine Mountain, Miss Palmer served as a Red Cross Nurse in the war and was specially cited by General Pershing for her “conspicuous service at Chateau-Thierry and at St. Mihiel” the first battles won in WWI. She continued her war efforts in Coblenz, Germany, with the American forces until the end of the war and then found her way to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. (Transactions of the Minnesota State Medical Association, Volume 39, p.127)

When she came to Pine Mountain’s Line Fork Settlement, she had experienced the horrors of war first-hand by caring for the troops maimed and mentally traumatized by battle. She was barely two years out of that war-time experience when she arrived.

Miss Frances Palmer came from Minneapolis and returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, to live. Like many of her co-workers, she became forever attached to the School through the memories of her work and the friends she made there. Also, like many of her co-workers, she left a thoughtful and heartfelt recollection of her months in a short narrative that is part of the Line Fork history compiled by the workers.

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